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Kant, the Enlightenment and Intellectual Autonomy

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Introduction to Philosophy

The University of Edinburgh

4.6 (3,706 ratings) | 290K Students Enrolled

This course will introduce you to some of the main areas of research in contemporary philosophy. Each module a different philosopher will talk you through some of the most important questions and issues in their area of expertise. We’ll begin by trying to understand what philosophy is – what are its characteristic aims and methods, and how does it differ from other subjects? Then we’ll spend the rest of the course gaining an introductory overview of several different areas of philosophy. Topics you’ll learn about will include: Epistemology, where we’ll consider what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it; Philosophy of science, where we’ll investigate foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice; Philosophy of Mind, where we’ll ask questions about what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained; Political Philosophy, where we'll investigate whether we have an obligation to obey the law; Moral Philosophy, where we’ll attempt to understand the nature of our moral judgements and reactions – whether they aim at some objective moral truth, or are mere personal or cultural preferences, and; Metaphysics, where we’ll think through some fundamental conceptual questions about free will and the nature of reality. The development of this MOOC has been led by the University of Edinburgh's Eidyn research centre. To accompany 'Introduction to Philosophy', we are pleased to announce a tie-in book from Routledge entitled 'Philosophy for Everyone'. This course companion to the 'Introduction to Philosophy' course was written by the Edinburgh Philosophy team expressly with the needs of MOOC students in mind. 'Philosophy for Everyone' contains clear and user-friendly chapters, chapter summaries, glossary, study questions, suggestions for further reading and guides to online resources. Please click "Start Here" and navigate to the "Optional Reading" page for more information.

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4.6 (3,706 ratings)

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AR

Jul 06, 2017

I found this course incredibly stimulating. A wonderfully structured introduction to European philosophy. All modules well presented. How lucky we are to have learning like this at our fingertips.

SD

Jul 04, 2019

This course is my first ever serious attempt to know Philosophy and it has been an excellent opportunity to know about different facets of modern Philosophy. I am curious to know more now! Thanks!

From the lesson

Should You Believe What You Hear?

(Dr. Allan Hazlett) Much of what we think about the world we believe on the basis of what other people say. But is this trust in other people's testimony justified? In this module, we’ll investigate how this question was addressed by two great philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume (1711 - 1776) and Thomas Reid (1710 - 1796). Hume and Reid's dispute about testimony represents a clash between two worldviews that would continue to clash for centuries: a skeptical and often secular worldview, eager to question everything (represented by Hume), and a conservative and often religious worldview, keen to defend common sense (represented by Reid).

Introduction: Hume on Testimony and Miracles8:48

Reid's Challenge to Hume2:13

Reid's Argument5:39

Kant, the Enlightenment and Intellectual Autonomy4:16

The Value of Intellectual Autonomy3:57

Taught By

Dr. Dave Ward
Lecturer in Philosophy
Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
Professor Michela Massimi
Full Professor
Dr. Suilin Lavelle
Lecturer in Philosophy
Dr. Matthew Chrisman
Reader in Philosophy
Dr. Allan Hazlett
Dr. Alasdair Richmond
Dr.
Guy Fletcher
Lecturer
Elinor Mason
Senior Lecturer

Transcript

So we've seen that David Hume and Thomas Reid give us very different pictures of the relationship between an individual and a society when it comes to intellectual matters. And by intellectual matters, I just mean matters having to do with how we form beliefs and opinions about the world. So what I wanna turn to now is, what does this all mean when it comes to the Enlightenment? And what I want to look at is an essay written by one of the major figures of the Enlightenment, German philosopher Immanuel Kant. So in 1784, Kant published an essay called, On answering the question: What is Enlightenment? And in this essay, he tries to answer that question. So I'm hoping this will give us some insight into this Age of Enlightenment, as the historians call it. At least, what someone in that age thought was going on when it came to this notion of enlightenment. Here's what Kant said, enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. The motto of the enlightenment is therefore, sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding. So that Latin motto means dare to be wise. More on that in a second. And what Kant is talking about here, among other things, is the extent to which we trust the testimony of other people. To trust someone else's testimony on some matter is to allow your own understanding to be guided by that other person. And Kant clearly thinks that not being guided by another person, that was not trusting other people's testimony, is in some sense a virtue. Contemporary philosophers have called this virtue, a related virtue, intellectual autonomy. So can we say anything more about what's involved in being intellectually autonomous? Well contemplize that this requires or at least involves in many cases not trusting other people's testimony. Not forming your beliefs because of what other people say, but in some sense forming them on your own. And in particular, contemplize that intellectual autonomy involves not believing things just because religious and political authorities tell you to believe them. Interestingly, in the same essay, Kant says you should obey what the authorities tell you to do. His point is you shouldn't obey what they tell you to think. So we can think of intellectual autonomy as epitomized by the person who believes something unpopular. Everyone's telling her that what she thinks is false, but she believes the unpopular thing anyway. Fans of intellectual autonomy think this is at least sometimes a good thing. It's virtuous, at least in some cases, to be willing to believe the unpopular thing, to go against conventional wisdom and to disagree with most other people. So whatever we conclude about David Hume's approach to testimony, we can see that he's a fan of intellectual autonomy. Don't trust other people's testimony, he says, unless you have evidence that they're likely to be right. So it's not that Hume thinks that you should never trust other people's testimony. He thinks that there's lots of situations in which you should. And it would be crazy not to trust other people's testimony all the time. You'd never be able to believe anything. So Hume thinks that it's often legitimate to trust other people's testimony, when you're asking for directions. Or, when you're reading a first hand historical account to learn something about history. But in all the cases where it's reasonable to trust other people's testimony, you've gotta have evidence that the person you're trusting is likely to be right. It's okay to trust other people, but it's never okay to blindly trust other people. And that's the sense in which, for Hume, the individual is always left on their own when it comes to forming her opinions. There's something undeniably individualistic about the picture of our intellectual lives that we get from Hume and from other fans of intellectual autonomy. And this contrasts really sharply with the picture we get from Reid, on which we're inherently social creatures when it comes to our intellectual lives. Intellectual autonomy, in some important sense for Reid, is a violation of our human nature. We're naturally social creatures, sharing information, not going off and forming beliefs on our own. So for Reid, our beliefs and opinion are naturally guided by other people. It's not mature to not be guided by other people, it's natural and appropriate to be guided by other people. So we might say that instead of intellectual autonomy, for Reid, the virtue is intellectual solidarity. That's the ideal of virtue that Reed offers, as against the Enlightenment that Hume and Kant proposed. And in this respect, it's really interesting that Reid anticipates some of the most important criticisms of the Enlightenment that arose in the 19th and the 20th centuries.

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